Drinking can have many negative impacts on our personal health, productivity, and relationships, but those of us who are parents have double the motivation to improve problematic drinking patterns.
There is an app with promising outcomes that can help do just that. Due to its promising outcomes, the Australian government is providing the app free to Australian citizens, but anyone can gain access by subscribing to the service.
While it would be great if the app were free everywhere, consider that in U.S. Dollars the service runs a little under $9.00/month, but… their website reports that active Daybeak members have cut down on their yearly alcohol spending by around $7,000. So, even if you pay for the subscription, you are likely to come out ahead financially with the cost-savings in alcohol.
Another outcome is that 70% of study participants in the “probably dependent” category more than halved their alcohol consumption while using Daybreak.
Please note: OKPTA Cultivate gets no incentive to recommend apps or other products. In fact, in our daily quest to identify and promote positive actions parents can take to improve the lives of families, we rarely post about any paid products. We have not notified Daybreak of this post, and have had no communications with developers. We have chosen to make our readers aware because we feel the app’s goals align with our mission and because the app is evidence-based.
Click here for information on where to get the Daybreak app.
Here are 3 Case Studies from Daybreak’s website:
Case Study One: A year of sobriety
Early in the morning after her 44th birthday, Casey77 woke up in a panic. She’d been asleep for a couple of hours but couldn’t remember if she’d bought her new coat home from the celebrations…or her wallet…and couldn’t remember where they’d left the car. Running out into the parking lot, she tried opening the wrong car door before realising that theirs was
parked a few spots away. There was no coat though. As she panicked, her partner tried to calm her down. Crying, she eventually found her coat on the pile of clothes on the bathroom floor. “I don’t want to live like this”, she kept repeating. The next day, Casey spent the day feeling miserable and horribly hungover. Mid-afternoon, she and her partner did the math and worked out that they’d run through $500 the night before, most of it on
alcohol. Casey joined Daybreak and found an “awesome community” and what became her “sober family”. She’d doing well and this year, on her 45th birthday, she and her partner had a great lunch, went shopping and then stopped for dessert on the way home. No alcohol, no hangover, no hit to the bank account and knowing where all their clothes are. Casey says she’s “blessed” and that “it’s only going to get better from here”. She’s back in control.
Case Study Two: the 100 day alcohol-free challenge
Cindy knew she was drinking too much. Coming to the end of the school year, she was tired, wanting to slow down and her evening glass of wine was expanding from one to a few. The few then turned into consecutive nights drinking and, before she realised, she was “drink fit” or drinking far too much. She knew she needed to take a break. She knew that, for her at least, alcohol is insidious. It’s creeps into life because it’s socially acceptable and sometimes even “prescribed” or expected as part of festivities and celebrations. Cindy turned to Daybreak for support and decided to take the 100 day alcohol-free challenge. Within days, her skin had improved and, within a week, her sleep had too. By the end of a fortnight, she
was really committed and within a month was even back at the gym – her energy levels had sky rocketed. At the five week mark, she noticed that her urge to drink was being replaced with new habits and, a week later, her bloating had dissipated and her muscle tone was improving. Her memory, her concentration and her focus improved dramatically and were “the best they’ve ever been”. Within two months, her mood was consistent…and positive and she began to question if she ever wanted to drink again. At 14 weeks, she decided to keep committing to Daybreak and go for the full year alcohol-free!!
Case Study Three: achieving inner peace
Mandy didn’t drink all the time and not even every day. She did often drink more than she meant to though and often felt like she had let herself down. Once or twice a week her drinking left her feeling physically and mentally “blah” and she felt bad about herself because of it. Her sleep was suffering and she knew that she was on a downward trajectory because of her alcohol consumption. Mandy researched what alcohol was doing to her body and to her mind. She’d given up drinking before, for Dry July or another reason, and had always felt deprived and as though she was missing out. Joining the Daybreak app changed this though. Mandy gave up drinking for a time and found that access to the app “made this ride much easier than expected” and that the “community is healing”. Her thoughts about drinking changed and, most of the time, she found that she simply didn’t want to drink. Occasionally, she’d crave a drink but found that it tended to relate to fitting in, old associations or the image of alcohol rather than the reality. Those cravings pass though and Mandy now finds that her life is much better now. She feels healthier, she sleeps well, is “WAY more level headed emotionally” and never hates herself now. She’s up early
exercising, meditating or doing yoga and is excited to be alive and experiencing the world with all her senses.
